László Bertók

Poems

Translated by Daniel Hoffman

 

Goes up to the Attic
Fölmegy a padlásra

He goes up to the attic for the snow-shovel, also brings down
some apples, walnuts, onions, five inches of snow
fell in the night, it's falling still (who knows?)
so whatever he may need should be at hand,
within easy reach. It's more and more the little things,
the mechanical daily chores occuring
almost by themselves, that fascinate him, these
he feels he still can trust, can cling to,
they need one another. Great causes
(redemption of the world, historical necessity
and so forth) no longer interest him. Two levels up,
to look around in the attic, and even more
to go up and fetch something tangible, that's better;
-even if he sometimes goes a little cautiously
for fear that among the clutter, pieces of furniture
piled on one another, from behind or under things
(rickety armchairs, children's desks, bicycles,
age-old kitchen cabinets, shelves, uncounted boxes)
some creature (a rat? a man?) might leap out.
Or someone (the ghost of adolescence? the
Reaper?) suddenly might beat the drum
gathering dust beside the door. Will the torch
he holds light up so he won't trip
on something in the narrow corridor left free
for passage? Or he might for instance fall
into the time-machine, since then he would
find himself at once in the attic of
his childhood home, where he was born, and start
searching for prunes, pears, smoked hams, sausage,
thin flank, and his great-grandfather's rifle
and pistol, forgetting why he'd come up...
How pleased he is to find in the corner of a box
some thin-shelled walnuts too (those down in the larder
are so hard, no use to crack them, he can't
pick out the kernels), and that there are fewer
rotten apples. In the long run, it seems,
if he pays attention the minute widens, chances
equalize, or at least approach equality,
all you have to do is stick it out till then,
it's only this, the present moment, just this one
you have to survive somehow (by for instance shovelling
snow from the terrace lest it melt, then freeze
and stay there until Spring), you have constantly to keep
putting things in order around you so space is left
for the extraordinary, even though you know
whatever you do it will create some for itself.